


miles to go before i sleep

by infalliblefandoms



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: 2014 Winter Olympics, Cosette is THE boss, Enjolras Is Bad At Feelings, F/M, M/M, Mutual Pining, Olympics, Sports, also there is a bobsled team, sochi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 20:16:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1239436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infalliblefandoms/pseuds/infalliblefandoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras is the darling of the nation, a world-champion ski jumper with golden curls to die for. Grantaire is the reckless but brilliant skeleton competitor. Cosette is the disgruntled manager of Team France. Marius is the darling journalist with the 'pleasure' of covering the games for France 24. The rest of them are there, doing sports also. In the snow. </p><p>Or, the Winter Olympics AU that was said to be a good idea by a grand total of no one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

Grantaire tries to sleep during his flight. Truly, he does. 

 

He self medicates with tiny, complimentary bottles of vodka, the classical music station, and David Attenborough documentaries on the in-flight entertainment system.

 

But somehow he ends up staring apprehensively out the window the entire trip, and when they land he finds his nails have been bitten to stubs, and that his knee is still doing that incessant jiggling thing it does when he's unbearably anxious. The sense of foreboding only intensifies.

 

When he enters the terminal his nerves are as frayed as his patience, and his fingers are twitching out erratic rhythms onto the strap of his bag. The airport itself is conspicuously desolate - though he doesn't register much besides it's overall nondescriptness.

 

His gear and luggage are rescued from baggage claim by a minute swarm of brightly dressed volunteers, and he has a vague awareness of his coach and fellow athletes milling around him, but he's too focused on the damp sweat clinging to his palms to care or notice. 

 

It's only when Eponine bounds up and launches herself into his arms that the room comes back into focus- and he gazes dumbly at the missing panels in the ceiling as he holds her and hears her distantly firing off salutations with alarming speed and exuberance.

 

When she steps back she appraises him for a long moment, lips pursed.

 

Her gaze comes to rest on the slight tremor of his hand, and then shifts to his glazed expression. It's likely he looks half-deranged. She frowns. She lets her hand drop from where it was propped on her hip. She starts looking at him like one would a lost puppy with a limp.

 

"Oh _honey_." She fusses, the words bursting with maternal concern. "Is it the pre-games nerves?"

 

He fixes her with a pointed look.

 

"No," he says, dryly. "That is so far from the issue."

 

"How far?" she asks.

 

"About as far as it'll take you to get from the luge track to the RusSki Gorki ski jump."

 

"Oh," she says. " _Him._ "

 

'Oh _him,_ ' indeed.

 

That's depressingly close to becoming his catchphrase. 

 

 

 

 

-*-

 

 

 

 

Let it be known that Cosette Fauchelevent is bloody good at her job.

 

She can tackle a torrent of bad publicity without displacing a hair on her head. In five inch heels. And a pencil skirt. And a tilt to her head just this side of regal. She could wrangle a group of misbehaving baboons with complete ease.

 

Which is not so far from her current job description, when you really think about it.

 

She is unflappable, uncompromising, adroit, _supreme..._

 

And so close to losing what little is left of her patience with the near-hysterical Grantaire currently sat on the bare mattress in front of her.

 

"Right. So, just to clarify, let me just quote this all back to you, verbatim."

 

Grantaire sniffles in concession.

 

"Okay." She clears her throat, for maximum effect. " _Cosette! Oh sweet, merciful Cosette! Save me from this torturous existence, I simply cannot live in this excruciating purgatorial abyss a second longer-"_

 

She catches Grantaire's unimpressed eyebrow raise, and grins sheepishly.

 

"Alright, so maybe I took a little creative license with that one. Jesus, R. You ramble. Like, a whole lot. You can't expect me to remember whole passages of your tangential word-vomit."

 

Grantaire makes an affronted noise. Cosette ignores him in favour of pulling out her voice recorder and setting it on the coffee table.

 

" _Yes,_ I recorded you. Shocking, I know. I'm a terrible human, what can I say. Shall I?"

 

He just sighs dejectedly from his perch on the edge of the unmade bed, and offers a nod that is two parts resignation, and one part self-pity.

 

She rewinds, presses play.

 

_"For fucking real, though. I thought I could do this, I really did. I swear I never meant to let you down. To let all of you down. But I can't. I absolutely cannot. I. Cannot. Do. This."_

 

A pregnant pause…

 

The slight buzz of static.

 

 _"I haven't even fucking seen him yet and I know that I will not be able to deal with it. And christ, I just did not think this through at all. Sorry France, but I'm gonna have to let you down. I mean, not that I was going to win anything anyway, I mean, I'm mediocre at best, who even let me into the fucking Olympics in the first place? But still, all the patriotism in the world couldn't force me into the same room as him. Let alone the same city. JESUS COSETTE- what am I doing here!? WHY DID I COME HERE oh fuck he's literally perfect and I actually teared up the other day"_ \- a snort form Cosette - _"when he was on France3 but I couldn't help it, he was just fucking resplendent, you know? And fuck, the things that come out of his mouth. How am I actually expected to deal with that? And in person? No fucking thank you._

 

Another pause, and a pathetic little sniffle. 

 

And then a pitiful, _"Cosette, I'm going home."_ She can practically hear his pout through the tinny speakers.

 

The recording peters out into a low hum. Cosette shuts off the playback.

 

"Alright. Let me just go through this point by point, okay? I need this to be very, _very_ clear to you. Understood?"

 

Grantaire groans miserably.

 

"One: You absolutely can do this. Grantaire, you are brilliant. You are strong. You are good. Too damn good for this world. You have survived so much, and overcome even more. And the thought that you can't find it in yourself to stand in the same room as this guy - freakishly gorgeous gold-medalist or no - is _laughable_.

 

"Two: You are more capable of winning that medal than anyone. I would say that you're _just as_ capable, but I'm not kidding when I tell you I've never seen a competitiveness so fierce in all my time in this job. Seriously. You're quite frightening when you get in the zone."

 

"Three: You are going to deal with it. And you are going to deal with it in person. And with a smile on your face. You know why? Because I say so. And you do as I say. That's how it works. I'm the manager. I _own_ you, darling." She grins. "Not that I want to endorse ownership of one person by another because individual agency is so important, and everyone needs autonomy, because freewill is a right but so many people are existing _for_ other people when they should be living volitionally-"

 

"Fucking christ, shut _up._ You sound exactly like him _._ "

 

Cosette continues, unheeded.

 

"But no, you're not going to do it for me. You're not going to do it for the team. You're not even going to do it for _France._ You're going to do it for you. Because you don't deserve to live your life in someone's shadow. He is no greater man than you, and no less human. And I think you owe it to yourself to face it all head on, like you do any race, any track. And once you've done that, you can get out there on the _real_ track and kick some freaking ass. Sound good?"

 

Grantaire sighs, but in the end he acquiesces. And he does it meekly. 

 

Such is the power of Cosette.

 

 

Now, he only has to overcome that goddamn italicised 'him' that's been haunting him since he boarded the damn plane to Russia.

 

 

 

 

-*-

 

 

 

 

 

"They actually expect me to _live_ in this cesspit?"

 

Courfeyrac stands in the middle of his hotel room - which, calling it a hotel room is a charitable description - gasping dramatically and pointing whenever he spots another gaping flaw. Or in one case, gaping _floor_ , where one corner of the room features upturned carpet and a dark hole which in all likelihood probably leads to hell itself.

 

"There are no water faucets, Combeferre. No _faucets!_ How am I supposed to do my daily facial cleanse with _no running water?"_

 

The poor thing sounds positively traumatised. An amusing emotion on a twenty-one year old Snowboarding champ with a 'cool boy' rep.

 

"No daily facial cleanse? However will you survive." Combeferre remarks dryly, unzipping his suitcase at the end of his bed.

 

Courfeyrac whines and throws himself backwards onto his own bed, _tantrums are his forte,_ and throws an arm across his face.

 

"I won't last a week in this place. I'll go insane! No, stop laughing at me. _Stop it!_ That's it. I'm going to find Enjolras. He'll have sympathy for me."

 

Combeferre snorts amusedly as Courfeyrac leaves the room in a huff, fully assured that Enjolras will have no sympathy. At all.

 

 

 

 

-*-

 

 

 

 

Enjolras reclines in his armchair with an arrogant slouch and an amused quirk to his eyebrow, watching the obviously green journalist flail around from across the table.

 

"So, uh, Enjolras. It's your third Winter Olympics this year…" 

 

"Yes," Enjolras drawls, astounded that the French press even let this guy in. "You are correct."

 

The guy clears his throat, shuffles his papers. "Yes, well, you've won two gold medals previously, and a silver when you were only… seventeen, was it?"

 

"Also correct. Well done."

 

He knows he's being an asshole, but he really cannot help himself. Also he just got in three hours ago from the airport, so it's entirely excusable for him to be a dick.

 

The reporter opens his mouth to continue his pathetic line of inquiry when Cosette pops her head through the door.

 

"Hiya," she greets brightly. "Enjolras, you're not traumatising our poor Marius, are you? It's his first run at an international event so I hope you're playing nice."

 

Enjolras notes the mottled magenta colour of Marius' face with a detached sort of amusement before turning back to Cosette.

 

"And what atrocity have I committed now that calls for my manager to drop by, I wonder?"

 

Cosette laughs, "I'm not _your_ manager, you self important ass - that's off the record, Marius, darling - I'm _the_ manager. And I'm here to inform you that your time is up. The world wants to hear no more of you..."

 

[Enjolras has enough self-awareness to know that this isn't remotely the truth - the world adores him.]

 

"...And it's somebody else's turn now, so run along."

 

She waves goodbye to Marius and disappears back through the door, golden locks billowing in her wake.

 

Enjolras sighs and flashes a saccharine smile at the journalist - Marius - who looks more than a little shellshocked.

 

"Well, it's been a… pleasure." Enjolras remarks (probably far too sarcastically to be considered polite at all), before exiting the small, unfurnished press room.

 

He isn't at all prepared for what awaits him on the other side of the door.

 

Slouched in a plastic chair on the opposite side of the room, with a beanie pulled down over his head and long, dark curls spilling out from under it every which way, is Grantaire.

 

Grantaire.

 

The same Grantaire that spontaneously kissed him in front of thousands of spectators during the closing ceremony in Vancouver four years ago.

 

Yep.

 

Definitely the same Grantaire.

 

 

Right. Well. This day just got a whole lot more interesting.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enjolras and Grantaire communicate, without actually communicating successfully at all.

If Enjolras wasn't sure that Grantaire wants nothing to do with him before this moment, he's definitely certain when the man in question glances up and sees him hovering by the door.

 

"Jesus _fuck_ , what are you doing here?" he exclaims, voice rising in what sounds like panic toward the end. Weird.

 

"Uh," he gestures lamely toward the door behind him. Christ, where did all that lofty, effortless charm disappear to?

 

Grantaire clears his throat. The guy looks all kinds of uncomfortable, attempting to tug his curls down to hide his face. Enjolras had no idea his presence was so abhorrent.

 

Well, he supposes it has something to do with that time Grantaire was tipsy during the 2010 closing ceremony and unwittingly kissed him, prompting him to avoid Enjolras doggedly for no less than four years. It was unclear whether the avoiding was because Enjolras was horrific at kissing (Courfeyrac has assured him this is not the case), or because Grantaire realised that a stadium full of people had witnessed him making a horrendously stupid mistake that he probably wasn't even aware he was making. (At the time, Courfeyrac had been quick to console Enjolras - _'Don't worry about it, man. I mean, he was probably drunk as a skunk! I bet that's all it was!'_ )

 

Brilliant. Because he really needed reminding that Grantaire kissed him a moment of lapsed judgement and intoxicated rashness. This whole incident has been a major blow to his ego. Thankfully, he has no shortage of self-esteem.

 

He supposes the smart and civil thing to do would be to assure Grantaire that the matter is entirely in the past, and that he would appreciate it if he could be forgiven for that minute moment in which Enjolras found himself taking advantage of an inebriated Grantaire by pressing back just a little with his own lips, parting them slightly with a small, pleased sigh. It was mere seconds, but Enjolras feels tides of guilt for that one tiny fraction of time. Grantaire didn't know what he was doing. Enjolras exploited that fact to satisfy his own little crush.

 

He _should_ say that he would like it if they could get past it, if Grantaire could forgive him and possibly pretend like the whole ordeal doesn't make him intensely discomfited, if they could somehow dissolve the air of awkwardness that hangs heavy in the room like the heady scent of freshly sprayed deodorant. 

 

What he _wants_ to do, however, is grab Grantaire by the lapels of his jacket and demand to know why the act of kissing him was _so very terrible_ that he feels the need to make as if it never happened. Wants to shake out of him the reason why he kissed him the first place, if the memory of it - and Enjolras' mere presence in the same room - is so horrific that it makes him shift uneasily in his seat. Wants to kiss him again just to prove that it was enjoyable the first time, to prove that in that moment, Enjolras had been drunk on the velvet softness of Grantaire's lips, and the drag of stubble across his cheek, and that the roar of crowd had faded to nothing the second Grantaire's hand had landed gently on his face.

 

While apparently Grantaire had just been drunk on… well, alcohol.

 

It's Grantaire who beats him to it, in the end.

 

"Look," he says, scratching the back of his head awkwardly and watching the muted TV in the corner with extreme interest, "I know this is weird, and I'm really sorry, I was an A-grade dickhead. I just… I fucked up. I know I did. And beforehand, I…"

 

You'd been drinking. _[I'd been working up the courage to say something to you… about, well, you know what about. I've never been anything less than blatant about this whole thing, have I? And I hadn't even had one drink all day, y'know, big day and all… so my nerves were completely shattered..]_

 

"…look, I just wish that that entire afternoon had turned out differently, you know? Hindsight's 20/20 and all that. But I'm sorry, for the way it did go…"

 

Enjolras can't quite bring himself to agree - if Grantaire hadn't have been drinking, the entire ordeal would never had happened, and Enjolras wouldn't know what his lips feel like, and that would be nothing short of a tragedy.

 

Grantaire is still watching the television screen, displaying some bizarre Russian children's program, with a laser-like focus. There's a blush creeping slowly up his neck, and his posture is tensed, as if preparing for flight.

 

Christ, it's becoming apparent just how much he really detests Enjolras' company.

 

"It's fine," he cuts in, because this entire conversation is a train wreck and Grantaire is trying to _excuse_ him for being an advantageous ass which just will not do at all. "I understand why you'd be uncomfortable around me, it was an unfortunate incident" - Grantaire tries to hide the way his face crumples at the words - "but I think it'd be best for everyone if we just forgive and forget, right?"

 

"Right," Grantaire mumbles. "Well, sorry that shit's been so awkward between us. And, uh, thanks for forgiving me, I guess.

 

"See you around," he calls, like an afterthought, as he disappears into the press room.

 

Enjolras has one arm outstretched as though to stop Grantaire from leaving, because _what._

 

"Thanks for forgiving me, I guess" Enjolras mimics into the now empty room. Like an insane person. "Thanks for forgiving _me?_ "

 

No. _Grantaire_ is supposed to be the one doing the forgiving. _Enjolras_ is in the wrong.

 

_What is happening._

 

God, where is Combeferre?

 

Enjolras scrubs a hand over his face, frowning in confusion. He has a headache. Grantaire just asked Enjolras to forgive him. For what? For being in a vulnerable position and letting Enjolras take advantage of him for three seconds of selfish gain? Enjolras is simply in no position to process any of that right now.

 

Again, where the hell is Combeferre?

 

 

 

 

-*-

 

 

 

 

"Oh, shit. So you talked to him then?"

 

 Bahorel is rugged up in an unbranded ski jacket and beanie, both key to their infiltration of the Volunteer Village in search of booze. He nudges Grantaire with his elbow teasingly, almost sending him toppling.

 

Feuilly, Joly and Bossuet - also known as the other 3/4 of the French bobsleigh team - trudge along beside them through slush that is a gorgeous amalgamation of dirt, ice and snow. Bossuet's been lovingly calling it 'Sochi Sludge'.

 

"Yeah. But it's not exactly something I'd like to revisit."

 

Feuilly snorts. "Fair enough. But, like, did he acknowledge the whole, you know, ' _hey Enjolras, by the way, I'm crazy in love with you and want to lick your body all over_ '?"

 

Feuilly receives a handful of Sochi Sludge to the face.

 

 

 

 

-*-

 

 

 

 

Once they're all safely back inside the Athlete's Village after a long night of bad house music and passive-smoking thanks to the veritable chimney's that are young Russian volunteers (Grantaire had refrained from actual cigarettes, he's trying to be a good, respectable athlete and all that), their bellies warmed by good vodka and hands warmed by the gloves they stole from an abandoned merchandise table on their way out, Grantaire decides that all he wants in this world is a long, self-gratifying hot shower.

 

The only hitch in that plan is that Grantaire's hotel room doesn't actually contain a shower _per se_. It seems the plumbers got bored halfway through and decided that they'd rather go for a smoke than fit anything more than a jagged pipe jutting from the wall. Ah, the joys of life.

 

It's not like his first training session is tomorrow morning, or anything.

 

Somehow he ends up slumped in the hallway, bemoaning the state of his hair (to be fair, it's been shoved under beanies consistently for three days and is well on its way to being greasy as well as matted) and cursing everyone from Putin to the contractors hired to do (or more accurately, _not do_ ) this goddamn hotel's plumbing for the absence of a shower in his life.

 

And of course, because the universe adores him, that's how Enjolras finds him.

 


End file.
